Jun 12, 2015
Jun 11, 2015
Today In Woo
(paraphrasing):
"Teaching one religion to children is called indoctrination. Teaching all religions to children is call inoculation." --Matt Dillahunty
Here's what bugs me about the religiousness of a certain brand of TheoPolitics in USAmerica Inc right now:
Kids go off to school and they learn about Evolution, which eventually and necessarily requires them to question their religious training, especially if it's been all about Gardens and talking snakes and Jesus walking his pet velociraptor in the park etc. Well, sometimes that leads to trouble because their parents have been so busy trying to make sure those kids are securely bubble-wrapped in dogma, they're gonna make sure the next school board meeting turns into Night Of The Living Dead.
And yes, you have the right to know what's going on in the classroom, and yes, you have the right to be heard when the curriculum decisions are made. But let's not get off into the weeds, cuz here's the point:
Let's say I've taught my kid that the world is a flat disc under a crystal dome, and it's being carried thru the ether on the back of giant turtle. Then one day the kid comes home from school and he tells me his teacher has come up with this thing called "math" and he says the numbers lead him to believe the world is a sphere. As a living thinking human possessed of a living thinking brain, do I conclude there must be something wrong with that stupid teacher and you can bet that stupid school's gonna hear from my lawyers? Or am I honor-bound to consider that maybe there're things I don't know about - things I may find useful - and need to learn?
Science starts with a hypothesis, tests it against what's already been reasonably proven to be true, and then draws a conclusion as to what's now most likely to be true given this new information at this point in time.
Religion starts with an arbitrary conclusion, and then has to manufacture evidence (ie: make shit up) to support it. The kicker: You don't really think it was simple coincidence that GW Bush made way too many of his disastrous policy decisions based on that model of "thinking" didya?
Openly Secular
"Teaching one religion to children is called indoctrination. Teaching all religions to children is call inoculation." --Matt Dillahunty
Here's what bugs me about the religiousness of a certain brand of TheoPolitics in USAmerica Inc right now:
Kids go off to school and they learn about Evolution, which eventually and necessarily requires them to question their religious training, especially if it's been all about Gardens and talking snakes and Jesus walking his pet velociraptor in the park etc. Well, sometimes that leads to trouble because their parents have been so busy trying to make sure those kids are securely bubble-wrapped in dogma, they're gonna make sure the next school board meeting turns into Night Of The Living Dead.
And yes, you have the right to know what's going on in the classroom, and yes, you have the right to be heard when the curriculum decisions are made. But let's not get off into the weeds, cuz here's the point:
Let's say I've taught my kid that the world is a flat disc under a crystal dome, and it's being carried thru the ether on the back of giant turtle. Then one day the kid comes home from school and he tells me his teacher has come up with this thing called "math" and he says the numbers lead him to believe the world is a sphere. As a living thinking human possessed of a living thinking brain, do I conclude there must be something wrong with that stupid teacher and you can bet that stupid school's gonna hear from my lawyers? Or am I honor-bound to consider that maybe there're things I don't know about - things I may find useful - and need to learn?
Science starts with a hypothesis, tests it against what's already been reasonably proven to be true, and then draws a conclusion as to what's now most likely to be true given this new information at this point in time.
Religion starts with an arbitrary conclusion, and then has to manufacture evidence (ie: make shit up) to support it. The kicker: You don't really think it was simple coincidence that GW Bush made way too many of his disastrous policy decisions based on that model of "thinking" didya?
Ya'll knew all that already - but it bears repeating.
Openly Secular
Jun 10, 2015
Iraq-mire
NYT:
Iraq has no army, and Iraq has nothing out of which anybody can hope to build an army; because there is no Iraq. Iraq exists only as the memory of a few arbitrary lines the British drew on a piece of paper 90-some years ago. It's Done. It's Kaput. It's Finished. It's Dead Dead and Fucking Dead. Give it up already.
And gee - it's almost as if somebody put the whole thing in motion on purpose; like they figured on it being one big unfixable FUBAR; and they'd leave it for the Dems to waste time and resources trying to tidy up for a while; and when enough Rubes are ready for the Etch-A-Sketch move, they amp up the rhetoric with, "well - it's Obama's problem now - been Obama's problem for a while - he can't just blame it all on Cheney forever - looks like leadership trouble to me - y'know the Bush Doctrine is good policy, but Obama's incompetence blah blah blah..."
This is a very standard play.
WASHINGTON — In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province, Iraq, and to send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi.
The White House on Wednesday is expected to announce a plan that follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently plans to retake Mosul, another Iraqi city that fell to the Islamic State last year, should figure in the early phase of the military campaign against the group.
The fall of Ramadi last month effectively settled the administration debate, at least for the time being. American officials said Ramadi was now expected to become the focus of a lengthy campaign to regain Mosul at a later stage, possibly not until 2016.
The additional American troops will arrive as early as this summer, a United States official said, and will focus on training Sunni fighters with the Iraqi Army. The official called the coming announcement “an adjustment to try to get the right training to the right folks.”--and today's Understatement-That-Makes-It-Sound-Like-Ya-Really-Don't-Give-A-Fuck award goes to:
The United States Central Command’s emphasis on retaking Mosul depended critically on efforts to retrain the Iraqi Army, which appear to have gotten off to a slow start. Some Iraqi officials also thought the schedule for taking Mosul was unrealistic, and some bridled when an official from the Central Command told reporters in February that an assault to capture the city was planned for this spring.A slow start - from 2003. 12 years. That's not a slow start. That's not a start of any kind. That's an ending, and it's called "petrification"; or "putrefaction"; or some other term we use to indicate that it's over.
Iraq has no army, and Iraq has nothing out of which anybody can hope to build an army; because there is no Iraq. Iraq exists only as the memory of a few arbitrary lines the British drew on a piece of paper 90-some years ago. It's Done. It's Kaput. It's Finished. It's Dead Dead and Fucking Dead. Give it up already.
And gee - it's almost as if somebody put the whole thing in motion on purpose; like they figured on it being one big unfixable FUBAR; and they'd leave it for the Dems to waste time and resources trying to tidy up for a while; and when enough Rubes are ready for the Etch-A-Sketch move, they amp up the rhetoric with, "well - it's Obama's problem now - been Obama's problem for a while - he can't just blame it all on Cheney forever - looks like leadership trouble to me - y'know the Bush Doctrine is good policy, but Obama's incompetence blah blah blah..."
This is a very standard play.
- Fuck something up
- Point at it and say, "Hey look - it's all fucked up"
- "I have a plan..."
But let's be sure not to talk about any of that. And let's definitely not concentrate on how our mighty military will once again be showing us their Selflessly Courageous Awesomeness by going back to some desert shithole to fight and to bleed an to die so Halliburton and Royal Dutch Shell and Northrup Grumman can add a coupla nickels to their Quarterly Earnings Reports, and then turn around and use a good buncha those hard-earned Blood Dollars to create an even more reliable generation of Coin-Operated Politicians.
Let's just keep blabbin' about what a wonderment it is that there can be so many voters in the big squishy middle who can't quite make up their minds about all this.
Fuck me silly, Bubba - I just can't stand this shit sometimes.
Jun 8, 2015
The Golden Arrow
A classic from 2007:
Special note 1: starting at about 02:15, she makes the point that among the 100 biggest economies in the world, 51 of 'em are Corporations - 8 years ago in 2007.
Special note 1: starting at about 02:15, she makes the point that among the 100 biggest economies in the world, 51 of 'em are Corporations - 8 years ago in 2007.
Things have "improved" since then, with the number of Corporations in those top 100 spots dwindling to 37 (as of about 2012 or 14). So, OK, but take a look at how the smart money has been playing its hand of late, and you might notice that the power those companies can wield in terms of controlling interests in governments has increased (by orders of magnitude me thinks) - so the actual number of dollars in those "economies" isn't as significant as the fact that they've been very busily ensuring themselves of a reliable military capability (eg).
And how do they do that? Well, in terms that are admittedly kinda simplistic, they don't have to own the whole government when they can own several of the key people who run the government.
Out of these 10 randomly selected folks: John McCain, Bruce Rauner, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, Dianne Feinstein, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Tom Cotton and Jack Lew - which ones do you think would go against the opinions of the people who spent the money to put them in their positions of power in the first place?
Special note 2: Externalizing The Costs - about 08:15 - is where she addresses the bullshit notions of Supply Side Economics.
Anyway, what really and truly bugs me is the fact that we're still not talking about sustainability as a guiding principle. I can see some efforts here and there, but it looks more like a fashion thing than it does a real shift in how we do things.
Change is scary, but the like the man said, it's either change or die. So yeah.
Today's Charlie
Charlie Pierce at Esquire Magazine:
It doesn't matter how many people climb into the Republican clown car or how close Bernie Sanders is polling in Iowa. The deep-seated rot that has been injected quite deliberately into our elections is the story from which all others flow. The primary and fundamental debate must be between those who profit from the corruption, those who simply accept it and opt out, and those people who want to reverse the slow suicide of democratic government. God help us all if the latter group doesn't win.At the risk of being just the tiniest bit too fucking obvious, the results of an election literally mean nothing if the process itself is crooked.
In whatever despotic shithole you can name - Saddams' Iraq or Pol Pot's Kampuchea or Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, et cetera ad nauseam - the election returns are always lopsided wins for the strong-arming dickhead du jour.
Cutting to the chase here - if I can manufacture a landslide, I can manufacture a horse race.
So I have to ask myself, in a country where ⅔ of the voters are clearly in favor of 3 or 4 or 5 top issues, and when it's also fairly clear that generally the candidate of one party agrees with them and the candidate from the other party doesn't - how do we keep getting these down-to-the-wire-by-a-nose "victories"?
Seems more than a little curious to me.
Jun 7, 2015
Perspective
Via HuffPo:
Interesting that "war" isn't being fought quite the same these days. Where it used to be all about sticks and rocks and guns and bombs and hyper-active teenagers blowin' shit up, now we use lawyers and trade agreements and Techie Hacker Interns and 30-something MBAs to keep the cost down. Although one thing seems never to change - there's always a very aggressive media effort to make us think we're all gettin' a helluva deal.
But Conquest by Corporation does no less violence to the populace, it's just that the infrastructure is left more or less intact - it's much more cost-effective that way - and it looks a lot better on TV. I hear "Trade Agreement" now, and I'm thinking "White-Collar Neutron Bomb".
Of course, the resulting immiseration effect is almost exactly the same because you can't do greater violence to somebody than to push them down into the abject poverty that has always grown out of the kind of Run-Away Darwinian Capitalism being put in place by Coin-Operated Politicians. And that last sentence should be more like "being put back in place..." because the world is starting to look a whole lot like the world of the 18th century - you remember, way way back when we decided not to play that fucked up game here; when we promised ourselves to work hard at being the exception to it.
So, trying not to go Full Cynical, and to maintain some glimmer of hope - even if it's only a hope for people I won't live long enough to know - my standard admonition still holds: A wide variety of assholes have been out to conquer the world for 20,000 generations. But somehow, the world remains undefeated.
Jun 6, 2015
Too Obvious?
Watch this:
...and try not to think of this:
...and try not to think of this:
But always always always try to remember that nobody's trying to save the planet. The planet doesn't need saving any more than it "needs" people - or any other life form for that matter.
What we're trying to do is to keep the joint from becoming uninhabitable for our own bad selves.
The decisions we make about work and family determine how our kids will live.
The "bigger" decisions we make about the economy and about politicians and governments and about the biosphere and how we all co-exist in (and with) the natural world - those decisions are all about how our kids will die.
Gotta start making some smarter choices.
hat tip = Addicting Info
Towards The Meritocracy
I have nothing against some good and healthy Intergenerational Wealth Transfer - it's an important tool in building strong communities. And it's worked wonders for everybody who's been born into White Middle Class America because of course, our system is the perfect mechanism for separating the people who're smart and rich from the people who're lazy and stupid.
To paraphrase: Capitalism has not failed us; you have failed Capitalism.
But "good and healthy" is not what we're doing with the No-Taxes-For-Rich-People-Ever policy drift, and it should be really obvious that it's not what we're doing, now that we've been trying to do it that way for 35 years (rapidly accelerating for the last 15), and we've ended up having to spend billions of precious few tax dollars to subsidize millions of Americans who can't quite make it working their asses off at Wal-Mart just because we refuse to elect politicians who have the balls to tell Alice Walton she'll have to figure how to eke out a living on something less than the interest she "earns" on her personal fortune of more than THIRTY-FUCKING-BILLION-DOLLARS.
Tax the fuck outa the estates of the UberRich and we won't get any more Legacy-Fuck-Pukes like George W Bush as "president".
Call it the Paris Hilton Prevention Act, and make sure it never sunsets.
To paraphrase: Capitalism has not failed us; you have failed Capitalism.
But "good and healthy" is not what we're doing with the No-Taxes-For-Rich-People-Ever policy drift, and it should be really obvious that it's not what we're doing, now that we've been trying to do it that way for 35 years (rapidly accelerating for the last 15), and we've ended up having to spend billions of precious few tax dollars to subsidize millions of Americans who can't quite make it working their asses off at Wal-Mart just because we refuse to elect politicians who have the balls to tell Alice Walton she'll have to figure how to eke out a living on something less than the interest she "earns" on her personal fortune of more than THIRTY-FUCKING-BILLION-DOLLARS.
Tax the fuck outa the estates of the UberRich and we won't get any more Legacy-Fuck-Pukes like George W Bush as "president".
Call it the Paris Hilton Prevention Act, and make sure it never sunsets.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 4, 2015
Some Tweets
Rick Perry. Because America needs a leader who talks about quitting America.
— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) June 4, 2015
Rick Perry, the governor who signed off on the most executions in American history, asks voters for a second chance.
— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) June 4, 2015
Hats off to @LindseyGrahamSC for building a foreign policy using only 100% recycled Neocon crazytalk: http://t.co/sgwfrmKNJ1 @SMShow
— driftglass (@Mr_Electrico) June 4, 2015
Today's Charlie
Esquire:
--and ending with--
Most of the poll-related buzz today has to do with the new CNN numbers that are alleged to be bad news for Hillary Rodham Clinton (and for Jeb too, truth be told). But The New York Times has another poll that is both a cause for great optimism, and a source of some dread. Simply put, the numbers in the poll show that an overwhelming majority of Americans of all ages, and of both parties, realize that the Citizens United decision and its progeny have deformed American politics almost beyond recognition.
So what the polls shows is the country knows that its elections largely are a rigged business, but that the country also rather has given up on the only mechanism through which the problem can be corrected. At a fundamental level, this should surprise nobody, since we've had 30 years of successful propaganda about how politics and politicians, and the government they inhabit, is some sort of alien beast, rather than something we all create, over and over again. We've had almost a decade now of efforts to make it more difficult for people to vote, a campaign run by the people whom the tidal wave of campaign money have swept into office. So what we have now is a citizenry that realizes the corruption that the Supreme Court has embedded in the political life of the country when it legalized influence peddling. And it has convinced itself that there are no remedies. So what we end up with is a WWE democracy -- rigged as hell, but entertaining. All that's missing is somebody getting hit with a ladder.
Jun 3, 2015
May 29, 2015
Today's Video
Amy Schumer seems to be working hard and she's getting better at it.
hat tip = Little Green Footballs
May 28, 2015
May 25, 2015
A Poem For Memorial Day
"You Have No Fucking Clue"
by Vietnam War veteran Joe Depaoli
A bunch of young men in their late teens riding a bus to MCRD San Diego,
“Get the hell out of the bus and on those yellow footprints, you fucking Maggots”.
You have no fucking idea
Congratulations Marine,
the pride one has.
You have no fucking idea
On our way by ship to Vietnam,
riding out a two day typhoon on an old WWII troop transport.
You have no fucking idea
Off the coast of Vietnam,
watching flairs, tracer rounds flying, shell bursts.
You have no fucking idea
Getting on a Mike boat
and setting foot on enemy land - locked and loaded,
You have no fucking idea
An officer comes and says we can’t fire on the enemy until they fire first,
You have no fucking idea
The first night in enemy country,
You have no fucking idea
Short round, several Marines wounded,
"Corporal, take those two new Marines out about 3 clicks and set up an LP."
Night, dark as hell, seeing movement, fire M16 full auto,
hear yells of, "I’m hit, I’m hit - cease fire",
we just fired on or own ambush.
You have no fucking idea
Not on point today,
Why am I flying in the air, trip wire and a grenade;
You have no fucking idea
Scraping my wounds and the wounds of guys next to me out with a brush,
no anesthetic,
until they are clean and bleeding,
You have no fucking idea
On the hospital ship USS Sanctuary, standing on the railing,
watching a CH46 attempting to land on the flight deck,
it suddenly pitches right and 19 folks are in the water… only 5 survivors.
You have no fucking idea
Alfa Company is gridded in by the NVA,
only 26 non casualties out of 115 marines,
rescue effort to pick up the dead and wounded,
place dead and wounded on tanks.
You have no fucking idea
Take the wounded and dead off the tanks,
some flesh remains on the tank exhaust,
the burning flesh of Marines, so hastily loaded aboard,
You have no fucking idea
Back at Con Thien, only a couple of hundred incoming today,
buddy hit twice by shrapnel,
blew my radio away and part of one of my fingers,
got to get him to the chopper,
You have no fucking idea
Med evac buddy,
he lost one eye,
at the hospital in Da Nang,
someone yells, everyone that can get under your beds - incoming,
You have no fucking idea
On a C130 flying over the South China sea,
finally feel a little safe,
You have no fucking idea
One month later landing at Travis AFB,
the cheers of all aboard resound as we touchdown back in the world,
You have no fucking idea
Seeing my mother and father,
round eyes,
no smell of cordite,
no smell of burning 55 gallon drums of shit,
no orders to lock and load,
no sound of incoming,
no dead bloated maggot infested bodies of the enemy on the ground,
no one screaming "I’m hit - medic up",
no more shredded jungle fatigues,
no more dumping of enemy bodies in town squares,
You have no fucking idea
I look at my mother and father,
dad has a fucking idea because he was in WWII,
and my mother has a fucking idea because of being in an occupied country in WWII,
nothing is said or needs to be said other than, “Glad you're home son.”
My wife,
my children,
my grandchildren,
most of my family and friends,
You have no fucking idea
Dear Lord,
Dear Ancient ones,
how I wish I had no fucking idea.
by Vietnam War veteran Joe Depaoli
A bunch of young men in their late teens riding a bus to MCRD San Diego,
“Get the hell out of the bus and on those yellow footprints, you fucking Maggots”.
You have no fucking idea
Congratulations Marine,
the pride one has.
You have no fucking idea
On our way by ship to Vietnam,
riding out a two day typhoon on an old WWII troop transport.
You have no fucking idea
Off the coast of Vietnam,
watching flairs, tracer rounds flying, shell bursts.
You have no fucking idea
Getting on a Mike boat
and setting foot on enemy land - locked and loaded,
You have no fucking idea
An officer comes and says we can’t fire on the enemy until they fire first,
You have no fucking idea
The first night in enemy country,
You have no fucking idea
Short round, several Marines wounded,
"Corporal, take those two new Marines out about 3 clicks and set up an LP."
Night, dark as hell, seeing movement, fire M16 full auto,
hear yells of, "I’m hit, I’m hit - cease fire",
we just fired on or own ambush.
You have no fucking idea
Not on point today,
Why am I flying in the air, trip wire and a grenade;
You have no fucking idea
Scraping my wounds and the wounds of guys next to me out with a brush,
no anesthetic,
until they are clean and bleeding,
You have no fucking idea
On the hospital ship USS Sanctuary, standing on the railing,
watching a CH46 attempting to land on the flight deck,
it suddenly pitches right and 19 folks are in the water… only 5 survivors.
You have no fucking idea
Alfa Company is gridded in by the NVA,
only 26 non casualties out of 115 marines,
rescue effort to pick up the dead and wounded,
place dead and wounded on tanks.
You have no fucking idea
Take the wounded and dead off the tanks,
some flesh remains on the tank exhaust,
the burning flesh of Marines, so hastily loaded aboard,
You have no fucking idea
Back at Con Thien, only a couple of hundred incoming today,
buddy hit twice by shrapnel,
blew my radio away and part of one of my fingers,
got to get him to the chopper,
You have no fucking idea
Med evac buddy,
he lost one eye,
at the hospital in Da Nang,
someone yells, everyone that can get under your beds - incoming,
You have no fucking idea
On a C130 flying over the South China sea,
finally feel a little safe,
You have no fucking idea
One month later landing at Travis AFB,
the cheers of all aboard resound as we touchdown back in the world,
You have no fucking idea
Seeing my mother and father,
round eyes,
no smell of cordite,
no smell of burning 55 gallon drums of shit,
no orders to lock and load,
no sound of incoming,
no dead bloated maggot infested bodies of the enemy on the ground,
no one screaming "I’m hit - medic up",
no more shredded jungle fatigues,
no more dumping of enemy bodies in town squares,
You have no fucking idea
I look at my mother and father,
dad has a fucking idea because he was in WWII,
and my mother has a fucking idea because of being in an occupied country in WWII,
nothing is said or needs to be said other than, “Glad you're home son.”
My wife,
my children,
my grandchildren,
most of my family and friends,
You have no fucking idea
Dear Lord,
Dear Ancient ones,
how I wish I had no fucking idea.
hat tip = The Rude Pundit
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